If I were to join a startup as an engineer, these would be my top priorities:
The Team: Are they inspiring? Would I learn anything from them? Do they have what it takes? Are they motivated and full of energy? And ofc - do I like their personalities.
The product: Does it seem to have traction? Do investors believe in it? I wouldn't necessary have to believe fully in the idea myself, unless I have a deep knowledge within the industry. As an outsider, it's difficult to fully understand the demands in the given market.
Title/equity/salary: Show respect and show much you value their skills. This has to be reflected in the salary, equity and/or title. Idk if this is just my perception, but I sense that there's nothing engineers hate more than a bossy business guy that doesn't fully appreciate and understand the work of the engineer. Several times, I've been asked by some MBA guys to take on a CTO role and join as the 2nd/3rd co-founder, but would only offer a relatively small equity share (most recently 16% max in a tech startup before investments). This is a sure turnoff as I don't feel like they value engineering skills enough
If I were to join a startup as an engineer, these would be my top priorities:
The Team: Are they inspiring? Would I learn anything from them? Do they have what it takes? Are they motivated and full of energy? And ofc - do I like their personalities.
The product: Does it seem to have traction? Do investors believe in it? I wouldn't necessary have to believe fully in the idea myself, unless I have a deep knowledge within the industry. As an outsider, it's difficult to fully understand the demands in the given market.
Title/equity/salary: Show respect and show much you value their skills. This has to be reflected in the salary, equity and/or title. Idk if this is just my perception, but I sense that there's nothing engineers hate more than a bossy business guy that doesn't fully appreciate and understand the work of the engineer. Several times, I've been asked by some MBA guys to take on a CTO role and join as the 2nd/3rd co-founder, but would only offer a relatively small equity share (most recently 16% max in a tech startup before investments). This is a sure turnoff as I don't feel like they value engineering skills enough
Sorry, I might have missed the question if you wanted a "config file"
Oh, no you are good. I was just being silly with the config file thing. Updated the post.
Thanks! This was really insightful. This seems to happen a lot in tech - biz guy hires Engineers but doesn't respect them.
A few things I didn't consider: